Best 52 quotes of Mikhail Lermontov on MyQuotes

Mikhail Lermontov

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    Afraid of decision, I buried my finer feelings in the depths of my heart and they died there.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    And I, as I lived, in an alien landWill die a slave and an orphan.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    Anyone who has chanced like me to roam through desolate mountains and studied at length their fantastic shapes and drunk the invigorating air of their valleys can understand why I wish to describe and depict these magic scenes for others.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    A strange thing, the human heart in general, and woman's heart in particular.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    Evil spawns evil. The first experience of torture gives an understanding of the pleasure in tormenting others.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    Happiness comes the way the wind blows.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I am like a mariner born and bred on board a buccaneer brig whose soul has become so inured to storm and strife that if cast ashore he would weary and languish no matter how alluring the shady groves and how bright the gentle sun.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    If only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worrying about so much.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I have a congenital desire to contradict; my whole life is merely a chain of sad and unsuccessful contradictions to heart and mind. When faced with enthusiasm, I am seized by a midwinter freeze, and I suppose that frequent dealings with sluggish phlegmatics would have made a passionate dreamer.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me, excite my blood. Being always on one’s guard, catching every glance, the significance of every word, guessing at intentions, frustrating their plots, pretending to be tricked, and suddenly, with a shove, upturning the whole enormous and arduously built edifice of their cunning and schemes—that’s what I call life.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    In people's eyes I readPages of malice and sin.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    In simple hearts the feeling for the beauty and grandeur of nature is a hundred-fold stronger and more vivid than in us, ecstatic composers of narratives in words and on paper.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    In the first place, [his eyes] never laughed when he laughed. Have you ever noticed this peculiarity some people have? It is either the sign of an evil nature or of a profound and lasting sorrow.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    It is sad to see a young man's fondest hopes and dreams shattered when the rose-colured veil is plucked away and he sees the actions and feelings of men for what they are. But he still has the hope of replacing his old illusions with others, just as fleeting, but also just as sweet.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I want to reconcile myself with heaven, I want to love, I want to pray, I want to believe in good.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I was born, so that the whole world could be a spectatorOf my triumph or my doom.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I was lying, but I wanted to rouse him. I have an inborn urge to contradict; my whole life has been a mere chain of sad and futile opposition to the dictates of either heart or reason. The presence of an enthusiast makes me as cold as a midwinter's day, and, I believe, frequent association with a listless phlegmatic would make me an impassioned dreamer.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I was modest--they accused me of being crafty: I became secretive. I felt deeply good and evil--nobody caressed me, everybody offended me: I became rancorous. I was gloomy--other children were merry and talkative. I felt myself superior to them--but was considered inferior: I became envious. I was ready to love the whole world--none understood me: and I learned to hate.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me, and I learned to hate.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    my love had grown one with my soul; it became darker, but did not go out

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    My whole life has been merely a succession of miserable and unsuccessful denials of feelings or reason.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    No good ever becomes of a man who forgets an old friend

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    Of two friends, one is always the slave of the other, although frequently neither acknowledges the fact to himself.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    One should never spurn a penitent criminal: in his despair he may become twice as much a criminal as before.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    Out of life's storm I carried only a few ideas - and not one feeling.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    O vanity! you are the lever by means of which Archimedes wished to lift the earth!

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    Passions are merely ideas in their initial stage.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    Russian ladies, for the most part, cherish only Platonic love, without mingling any thought of matrimony with it; and Platonic love is exceedingly embarrassing.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    The history of a man's soul, even the pettiest soul, is hardly less interesting and useful than the history of a whole people; especially when the former is the result of the observations of a mature mind upon itself, and has been written without any egotistical desire of arousing sympathy or astonishment. Rousseau's Confessions has precisely this defect – he read it to his friends.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    There are two men in me--one lives in the full sense of the word, the other reasons and passes judgment on the first. The first will perhaps take leave of you and the world forever in an hour now; and the second . . . the second?

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    We survive on novelty, so much less demanding than commitment.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    What is this eternity to me without you? What is the infinity of my domains? Empty ringing words, A spacious temple - without a divinity!

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    What of it? If I die, I die. It will be no great loss to the world, and I am thoroughly bored with life. I am like a man yawning at a ball; the only reason he does not go home to bed is that his carriage has not arrived yet.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    When we retire from the conventions of society and draw close to nature, we involuntarily become children: each attribute acquired by experience falls away from the soul, which becomes anew such as it was once and will surely be again.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    You men do not understand the delights of a glance, of a pressure of the hand... but as for me, I swear to you that, when I listen to your voice, I feel such a deep, strange bliss that the most passionate kisses could not take its place.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    A childish feeling, I admit, but, when we retire from the conventions of society and draw close to nature, we involuntarily become children: each attribute acquired by experience falls away from the soul, which becomes anew such as it was once and will surely be again.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    De geschiedenis van een mensenziel , zelfs van de allergeringste, is haast belangwekkender en leerrijker dan de geschiedenis van een geheel volk, vooral wanneer zij het resultaat is van een heldere geest, en wanneer zij geschreven is zonder ijdele wens bewondering en sympathie op te wekken.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    ...for I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me and quicken my pulse. To be always on one's guard, to catch every look and the significance of every word, to guess intentions, foil conspiracies, pretend to be deceived and then to overthrow with one blow the whole vast edifice of artifices and designs raised with so much effort - that is what I call life.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I am not capable of true friendship. One of the two friends is always the slave of the other, although, often, neither of the two admits this to himself.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I felt somehow happy to be so high above the world - a childish feeling, I grant, but we can't help becoming children as we leave social conventions behind and come nearer to nature. All life's experience is shed from us and the soul becomes anew what it once was and will surely be again

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I have carried only a few ideas out of life's storm - and not one feeling. I have long lived according to the head, not the heart. I consider and analyze my personal passions and actions with a strict curiosity, but without sympathy. There are two people within me: one who lives in the full sense of the word, and the other who reasons and judges him.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I must have had some high object in life, for I feel unbounded strength within me. But I never discovered it and was carried away by the allurements of empty, un-rewarding passions. I was tempered in their flames and came out cold and hard as steel, but I'd lost forever that fire of noble endeavour, that finest flower of life. How many time since then have I been an axe in the hands of fate? Like an engine of execution, I've descended on the heads of the condemned, often without malice, but always without pity. My love has brought no one happiness, for I've never sacrificed a thing for those I've loved. I've loved for myself, for my own pleasure, I've only tried to satisfy a strange inner need. I've fed on their feelings, love, joys and sufferings, and always wanted more. I'm like a starving man who falls asleep exhausted and sees rich food and sparkling wines before him. He rapturously falls on these phantom gifts of the imagination and feels better, but the moment he wakes up his dream disappears and he's left more hungry and desperate than before.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I realized that there was no point or sense in chasing after happiness that had perished.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I prefer to doubt everything. Such a disposition does not preclude a resolute character. On the contrary, as far as I am concerned, I always advance more boldly when I don't know what is waiting me for me. After all, nothing worse than death can happen-and death you can't escape!

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    I've an insatiable craving inside me that consumes everything and makes me regard the sufferings and joys of others only in their relationship to me, as food to sustain my spiritual powers. I am no longer capable of loosing my head in love, Ambition has been crushed in me by circumstances, but it has come out in another way, for ambition is nothing but a lust for power and my chief delight is to dominate those around me. To inspire in others love, devotion, fear - isn't that the first symptom and the supreme triumph of power? To cause another person suffering or joy, having no right to do so - isn't that the sweetest food of pride?

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    Loneliness It's Hell for us to draw the fetters Of life in alienation, stiff. All people prefer to share gladness, And nobody - to share grief. As a king of air, I'm lone here, The pain lives in my heart, so grim, And I can see that, to the fear Of fate, years pass me by like dreams; And comes again with, touched by gold, The same dream, gloomy one and old. I see a coffin, black and sole, It waits: why to detain the world? There will be not a sad reflection, There will be (I am betting on) Much more gaily celebration When I am dead, than - born.

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    no good ever comes of a man who forgets an old friend

  • By Anonym
    Mikhail Lermontov

    There is no feminine gaze that I would not forget at the sight of mountains covered with curly vegetation, and illumined by the southern sun, at the sight of the blue sky, or at the sound of a torrent that falls from crag to crag.